LUCKNOW: A passenger train travelling from eastern India to the Himalayan foothills derailed on Thursday, killing at least four people as several carriages were thrown off the tracks, police said.

Emergency services rushed to the scene to rescue trapped passengers after the Doon Express crashed in the district of Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh state, 210 kilometres (130 miles) east of the state capital Lucknow.

"Four passengers have died and a dozen others are injured, while a few more people are feared trapped in the coaches still lying on the tracks," the chief of the railway police in Uttar Pradesh, Gurcharan Singh, told AFP in Lucknow.

The Doon Express connects the eastern coastal city of Kolkata with the town of Dehradun in Uttarakhand state.

Thursday's accident came 10 days after 25 people died and 45 were injured when a sleeper train slammed into a stationary goods train in southern India.